Packard Bell going after the high end of the PC market
with lots of DVD-ROMs.....................
twice.virtualmarketing.com
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Packard Bell: Profits Lie Upstream
- -August 4, 1997
By Amy Gilroy
Reversing marketing roles with rival Compaq, Packard Bell NEC says it is not playing in the sub-$1,000 (including monitor) segment this season, choosing to lead its fall product lineup with a non-MMX 200MHz Pentium L-197 model priced at $999 without monitor.
This compares to Compaq's fall line, which bundles a monitor at $999 on its leader 180MHz MediaGX system. In previous seasons, it was Packard Bell that bundled a monitor below $1,000 while Compaq did not.
"We're not chasing market share. We're a company very focused on profitability," says Mal Ransom, senior VP of marketing for Packard Bell NEC. "We don't see a way right now that makes sense to have a fully featured, $999 product, and what we've learned is that end users want a fully featured product."
The new Packard Bell Multimedia and Platinum series products also focus heavily on customer support, bundling additional tutorials and programs such as CyberWarner -- which runs in the background of the system notifying a user if he or she is about to initiate a command that could create a critical error in his system.
The Packard Bell Multimedia series starts with the L197, a non-MMX Pentium 200 model with 16MB of RAM, 2.1 GB hard drive, 16X CD-ROM, and 33.6 Kbps modem, The system is priced at $999 without monitor.
The line steps up to the M400, a P166 with MMX, which includes MPEG-2 video and Dolby Digital sound, SRS, and telephone answering system with full duplex speakerphone at an estimated street $1,299.
The R510 is a P200 with MMX system which adds DVD-ROM, 32MB of RAM, 4.3 GB hard drive and 56K x2 modem at an estimated street price of $1,999.
Next in the Packard Bell Multimedia line is the S615, a 233MHz MMX unit without DVD-ROM, but offering 32MB of SDRAM, a 5.1GB hard drive, 24X CD-ROM, ATI Rage II+ 3D graphics accelerator, MPEG-2 and AC-3, and a 56K x2 modem at an estimated street price of $1,899.
At the top of the line is the Platinum 4200, a 266MHz MMX unit with DVD, 32MB of EDO DRAM, 7GB hard drive, 3D graphics accelerator with 4MB of EDO video RAM, and 56K modem at an estimated street price of $2,499.
Ransom said the company recently spent over $100 million to upgrade customer service and support. Support call hold times have declined to a two-minute wait, said Ransom, noting, "we are completing over 80% of our field calls in three days or less." |
